


Home Is Not A Place

by Shenanigans



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Fix It Fic, Gen, I just want them both back okay, gratuitous use of the pits at some point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:53:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/Shenanigans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Is Not A Place

Memories were traitorous and hateful things. They were slippery as oil and slipped over Damian’s skin just as fluidly, staining him as he walked through the city, feet aching and chest tight. The air smelled of winter, cold and wet, heavy on his shoulders and he huddled deeper into the thick coat he’d taken from the dry cleaner’s he’d broken into. He slept on benches, fighting cats for the leftovers in the dumpsters behind the fashionable restaurants. He ate until he was full, sucking his fingers before holding out the end of one chicken bone to let the snarling gray tabby steal it and glower at him before scampering into the dark. This whole city felt like a bruise. This whole city felt like a memory of pain that was blood scabbed under knuckles healed over. It felt swollen and wrong, but Damian didn’t want to leave.

He gnashed his teeth. He scowled. He stole. He survived. He wasn’t sure when that stopped being enough.

“I’m meant for something more than this,” he told the tabby that had formed a small wary truce with him and curled at his hip. It had one battered ear and a crooked tail, but it was glorious when it fought and Damian appreciated that.

The other street kids gave him wide berth, wandering like feral packs of dogs. The understood this alley cat had claws.

Damian did always love his knives.

They swarmed him one night, silent and starving, hollow eyed and desperate the way this city seemed to breed. Hunger was a terrible thing that would gnaw blisters against his ribs. Cold was a dangerous lover that would curl soft fingers around him at night, begging him with puffs of white breaths to simply sleep. He was fast. He was cruel. He was stronger.

He heard the growl he made when his fist cracked across the biggest boy’s jaw. He heard the wet rattle of spit teeth. He relished the sound of bone crunching. He moved like oil, quick and slick as it slipped through water. He beat. He fought. He wrecked. He raged.

The heat of it set him alight, magic and perfect in the pound of blood in his veins, the cold a balm to his lungs as he ducked and dove, rolling over a trash can to land on the bed of moldering cardboard and spin, stance loose and low. He watched a girl pick the boy up, eyes wide and afraid. He watched the other boys bulk up and take stock. He watched them reassess. 

He knew what he looked like: tall, broad shouldered without the bulk of muscle people of Gotham expected on fighters. He was lean, rangy and corded. He had lank black hair, heavy brows and a sharp planed jaw with a full mouth like a woman’s. He had a shock of white hair that had been with him since he’d woken up to pain and screaming. He woke up to blood and the violence of memories that burned like glass in fists. After that was a blur. After that was hunger and pain, violence and needing. He followed the wind, worked across an ocean, and followed the pull that hooked under his ribs and had dragged him here: to this alley, to this pack of half grown adult children, to this fist fight, to Gotham.

It had brought him home. He just couldn’t remember what that meant.

He pulled the knives from the waist of his belt, weaving them by rote, muscle memory that he didn’t recognize beyond beautiful. He lowered his chin, lowered his voice, and lowered his guard.

“Finally, people trying to kill me.” He heard his voice, low and rough with disuse like the creak of a rusted door. “ _Something_ that makes sense.”

He moved, shadow quick and light and only had a moment to shift at the sound like leather wings and the rough weighted hit of boots on the cement next to him. He had a flash of blonde hair, streaming behind the figure that wheeled to face him. He had the impression of a demon, pointed ears and inky black with a swirl of smoke. He reacted, turning to swing a quick heel at the new threat, instinct and what felt like a lifetime of fighting pushing to the top.

He was surprised when it was caught, twisting as they twisted to flip and land, face red with indignant anger. He lifted the knives, snarl ready and blue eyes catching the light as the clouds jostled each other enough to let the moon filter through.

“Damian?” The voice was husky, low toned but light, feminine and it struck him silent at the twist in his chest. He breathed, chest heaving as the group behind the girl- it was a girl- scattered out of the alley.

He could pick the odd edges of her, pointed cowl, cape, and batons in each hand. She was letting her stance drop, batons dropping to clatter on the filth of the alley. “Damian, omigod,” she spoke again and Damian felt his head cock like a cat at a strange noise as she stumbled, lacking any sort of grace and reached for him. He didn’t know why he didn’t fight it. He didn’t understand why the soft floral scent of her hair under the stench of kevlar and sweat made his throat close. He didn’t know how someone so covered in defense could feel so soft.

How someone he didn’t know felt like falling. He hit the ground, bouncing and lifted up again as she gripped him, hand at the back of his head to grip him tight, fingers pulling at the back of his coat to cling. 

He didn’t understand why the blonde hair irritated him or why his chin was crumbling, eyes burning. He just knew one thing. The pull was gone.

“Steph?” He was _home_.


End file.
